You might have heard about this effort already, as it's been in
discussions for a while.

At the end of DebConf16, I was approached by some people asking whether
I would like to start a team for LGBTIQA+ people within Debian, along
similar lines and with similar goals as the Debian Women project. The
idea was to create a welcoming space for, and increase visibility of,
underrepresented gender and sexual minorities within the Debian project.
It was also to make it clear that the Diversity Statement[1] isn't just
words, and that the Code of Conduct[2] is a genuinely important part of
our community.

Since then, the IRC channel #debian-diversity has been formed and we
have had a discussion session there. We have also had productive
sessions at both DebConf17 and DebConf18, where we tried to find out
what people expect from this group, and how to move forward. The Debian
project always has and always will welcome contributions from people who
are willing to work on a constructive level with each other, without
discrimination.

Through discussions with different people it became clear that calling
it the Diversity Team, or rather, Diversity Effort, would be the best
fitting name. Our aims aren't limited to specific gender or sexual
minority groups and our efforts are specifically meant to be
intersectional, and meant to be a combined force, regardless of one's
social status, racial background, sexual orientation, gender identity or
adherence to body or mental state or norms.

We stand for a respectful and welcoming environment.

We can be proud of what we managed to produce over the last 25 years.
Let's continue to build on these foundations, and make it clear that the
Debian community is open and welcoming.

An email address has been created to be able to reach the Diversity team
in private. If you seek support, feel free to reach out to us at
<diversity@xxxxxxxxxx>. We have also started to draft a Team page[3] on
the wiki.

Currently, we are in close contact with the DebConf19 Local Team from
Curitiba, so that we can try to ensure that those who would like to
attend the next DebConf can feel as safe as possible. We see you, we
are worried too, but we think that hiding is not the right reaction to
what's going on right now.